


Dinner for One

by BardofHeartDive



Series: A Good Ride [3]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Happy Ending, Headcanon, Paragon Commander Shepard, Post-Mass Effect 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-23
Updated: 2015-05-23
Packaged: 2018-03-31 19:55:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3990721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BardofHeartDive/pseuds/BardofHeartDive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shepard fends for herself while Kaidan is away, a fluffy gift for bondlikejames96.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dinner for One

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bondlikejames96](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bondlikejames96/gifts).



Ariella had once asked Kaidan what she would do without him.

Apparently, the answer was "starve."

Okay, "starve" was an exaggeration. In a firefight she had once gone three days on two nutrient bars and a bioti-bag. Certainly she could survive the weekend on whatever was in the kitchen. Kaidan always kept it well stocked.

She opened the refrigerator and froze. Saying it was "well stocked" was like saying Palaven was "warm," Noveria was "cool," and the Reapers had been "a little unfriendly." If everything had not been systematically organized, she would have been swallowed by an avalanche of proteins, produce, and fresh herbs, all neatly packaged, labeled, and dated.

Taking on heretic geth, Collectors, and the Reaper indoctrinated was less intimidating.

The cabinets were worse. At least in the refrigerator all the items were different. Here there were several variants of the same ingredient: salts, peppers, oils, sugars, pastas, rice. Some of the canisters were alien and only labeled in their original language. She examined a row of rainbow-colored glass bottles. Who knew that twelve different types of vinegar existed in the galaxy, let alone in her kitchen?

Food had never been a problem before. She would eat anything except ripe bananas and was happy as long as she got enough calories to support her biotic metabolism. After the war, she had survived largely on prepackaged meals and Alliance standard MREs. She had managed nutrition well enough but with the mindset that an egg was an egg whether it was hard boiled or delicately poached and served with Canadian bacon and homemade Hollandaise sauce on a perfectly toasted English muffin.

Since the Normandy's return, and more so after Kaidan moved in, she had been spoiled. No matter how much she teased him about a single incident of burned garlic, he was a damn good cook. She looked forward to his brussel sprouts and asked for seconds of his lima beans. She loved his cooking almost as much as she loved the man.

So there weren't twelve types of vinegar in her kitchen, there were twelve types of vinegar in their kitchen. And that was wonderful.

And come to think of it, hadn't she hidden an emergency stash of MREs in the back of one of the cupboards?

On first inspection, all she found was gadgets and a few novelty appliances. It would have been ridiculous if she hadn't seen Kaidan using each and every one of them in the last month. In the end she had to take all of them out but she was eventually rewarded with a small box with the Alliance seal on the side.

Opening the lid revealed something infinitely more interesting than MREs: a small note in Kaidan's handwriting.

"Did you really think I wouldn't find them? Top left drawer of the fridge."

She smiled at the note, mostly because she read it in Kaidan's voice. She followed the directions and found four containers in the drawer. The contents of each were printed on the side, "lasagna," "spicy stuffed peppers," "black bean fajita soup," and "chicken pot pie," followed by directions simple enough that she was fairly certain she could reheat them without burning the apartment to the ground.

She pulled out the peppers, set the oven to preheat, and refilled the cupboard.

* * *

She was reading in bed when Kaidan pinged her.

"Hey beautiful," he said when she answered.

"Hey yourself. How's the conference going?"

"Great. Better than great. I presented this morning but I caught the panel on biotic differences between species after lunch. The krogan was hilarious. You would have loved it."

"I loved dinner. What would I do without you?"

"You'll never find out."

**Author's Note:**

> Headcanon Notes:  
> Bioti-bag is marine slang for the calorie/electrolyte/energy drink the Alliance provides biotics.


End file.
